Segment 1
Dear List:
Well, hurricane or no hurricane (I hope all of you on the East Coast
are safe and dry), it's time to get down to brass tacks. In this
post I will take a somewhat more detailed look at the first six
paragraphs of JR's paper, and identify a few questions that they
raise. I have pasted the text of this segment into the end of the
email (hopefully without difficulties for either Mac or PC users)
for quick reference. That is about the only aspect of this post that
is quick, unfortunately. I will try very hard to make the subsequent
posts shorter.
At the outset, I admit, I do not see things JR's way at many points
in this paper, particularly his more sociological points. However,
I admire and respect what I take to be his basic project, which is to
reach out to an audience largely unfamiliar with Peirce and to seek
to show them the relevance of Peirce's thought to their own work.
I appreciate the ideas JR presents that concern Peirce's thinking,
regardless of how they may or may not bear on the academic and
scientific relations at issue. I'm not going to pull any punches
with respect to my differences of opinion with this paper (I have no
doubt JR would have rathered that I not). However, I will try to
raise questions that bring out the best in it and which contribute to
the understanding of JRs work overall, as a "unitary sign" as we have
been discussing it. I'm sure others on this list will be far better
at this than I, however, and I hope they will take the time to
contribute and set the record straighter in this regard.
The first focus I will take has to do with JR's announcement in
paragraph 6 that he will speak in this paper "in the spirit of
Peirce" rather than in Peirce's exact terms. JR's choice to
paraphrase Peirce in this paper is a choice that I assume was made so
as to avoid getting bogged down in a lot of explanatory work that
might loose sight of the issues of most interest to this particular
audience. So, JR is setting Peirce's thought to work here among
those who have little or no expertise in Peirce's work, in ways that
are less exact than a paper for Peirce specialists would be. Or are
they? My general question here is this: How necessary is the exact
terminology of Peirce to the accurate representation of his thought?
How far can one go without it, in ordinary language? This is a
question that I would expect many listers outside philosophy may have
considered at some length. The privilege, and the challenge, of
speaking in the letter, rather than in the spirit of Peirce, is not
one that has often been extended to members of my discipline from
within the membership itself, even when the subject matter under
investigation unambiguously justifies it. The tolerance for Peirce's
terminology and for learning his categorial approach is low among
anthropologists. So, I read JR's paper as, among other things, a
model for this kind of activity, although perhaps what JR is doing
here is more art than science and not something that one can
generalize about. All the same, the question regularly comes to mind
in reading over this paper: are the claims made really "in the spirit
of Peirce"? where is JR most successful in attempting this? where
does he fail, if ever? why? is it worth it, from the standpoint of
Peirce Studies?
Now, with regard to the section's main contents, in this introductory
segment, JR uses the opinion paper of Daniel Kleinman, "Why Science
and Scientists are Under Fire," as evidence of what he characterizes
as a general problem facing scientists: the attempted participation
of nonscientists into the actual course of inquiry of scientific
research. JR characterizes this participation as "unacceptable"
(paragraph 6), using terms such as "intrusion" (paragraph 2) and
"invasion" (paragraph 3) to describe it. He casts it as a process
of "politicization" (paragraph 4) that is being "forced upon"
scientists (paragraph 5) and which requires "defending" (paragraph
3). He recommends the philosophical "arming" (paragraph 4) of
scientific communities in order to deal with it.
JR seems to be using a mild rhetoric of warfare here to make the case
to his audience that they are not working in a safe environment
(politicized academe) and that they therefore have need of his
philosophical (Peircean) services if they are to survive in it and do
their best work. It is a rhetoric based in fear, fear of take-over
(social scientists might call it internal colonization). The intent
of this segment itself appears political on a disciplinary level--JR
wants the scientists to know that there are sides being taken in the
academic world beyond their laboratories, that he is on theirs, and
that the stakes are worth their giving him their serious attention
because of this.
This is not the most attractive strategy from the standpoint of a
scientist committed to building the most inclusive, intelligent, and
sustainable (which is to say the most diverse) scientific community
conceivable. However, it may have been the only means by which JR
thought he could hold the interest of this particular group. Was he
being pragmatic here, in any sense of the term? There is probably no
answer to this question that someone unfamiliar with the participants
in this event would be able to make. I raise it mainly to draw
attention to the question of how committed JR may have been to
Peirce's thought, not only as subject matter for his scholarly work,
but as a way to live his life more generally. Can we define a
politics of pragmaticism?--a huge question, to be sure, but perhaps
JR's paper gives us some insight into answering it.
It would not seem to be of primary interest, for the purposes of this
slow read, to assess how accurately JR is representing Kleinman in
this paper. Kleinman's opinion paper seems to be functioning here as
a way to establish the objective contemporary presence (and urgency)
of some general tendencies and ideas on which JR wants to dwell.
However, given the degree to which JR is, in fact, representing
Kleinman's ideas, and also identifying him individually as a certain
type of character, I am going to comment below (critically) on JR's
characterization. It will take up some space, so, for those
uninterested in this matter, stop reading at the paragraph beginning
with, "With regard to JR's comments on Kleinman."
The main idea or "real issue" that JR seeks to present via Kleinman's
paper is brought out in paragraph 3: "whether scientific inquiry is
to continue to be recognized institutionally as a discovery process,
guided ideally by the norms implicit in such ideas as that of truth,
knowledge, reality, objectivity, and so forth, or is to be controlled
instead by the principles of persuasion and accommodation that are
used in negotiational and political activity" (emphasis in JR's
text). JR wants to argue in the rest of the paper that scientific
inquiry should be guided by said norms. The either/or construction
of JR's sentence seems worth pondering, as is the emphatic formatting
of the term, "discovery." Two questions come to mind in this regard:
1) Why does JR put stress on this concept of "discovery"? What is
the implicit contrast to it (discovery/found vs inventive/made)? Is
this a reference to some idea of Peirce here?
2) Perhaps more important: Are the two different ways that JR
identifies of governing such discovery processes really,
fundamentally, discrete alternatives? are they as completely
separable and interchangeable as JR seems to think they are? In sum,
is this really a "Plan A or Plan B" situation? I'm skeptical about
it being accurate to think of discovery processes as guided either
(and simply) by "norms" on the one hand, or by "principles" of the
kind JR identifies on the other? I'm surprised to see JR even use
the term "principle" in relation to the strategies and tactics of
political activity he references (I'm not sure what JR has in mind by
"negotiational" activity). It sounds as though JR's view of
political life is very negative, lacking in norms implicit in its own
ideas of truth, knowledge, reality, not to mention honor. Perhaps
JR is simply saying that science ought to be governed by ideals that
rise above the historical contingencies within which any given
practice must be situated, ideals that relate to subject matter that
is itself relatively enduring, general, and transcendent. Any
thoughts about how to sort out this passage?
Lastly, JR's solution to the problems of politicization is clearly
stated in paragraph 4: scientists must get clear on the meaning of
"truth," "objectivity," and similarly important concepts. The
benefit of this is identified in paragraph 5: it will prevent
scientists from forgetting who they are--which is not
politicians--and it will enable them to point out why they are best
qualified to determine how their scientific work is to be conducted.
The logic JR is using here would seem to have a few gaps at this
point. How, for example, does getting clear on these concepts lead to
preventing the unwanted infiltration of outsiders? and why can't
non-scientists get equally clear on these concepts as well (it is
not as though their meaning is mysterious to nonscientists) and then
be qualified to share in the control of discovery processes? Filling
in these gaps constitutes the main work of the rest of the paper.
However, it appears that JR at this point is already seeking to
convince the scientists in the audience that, if they can, for
example, define themselves as "objective" in relation to their
subject matter because and only because of how they investigate it,
then they can define all those who do not engage in such work as less
objective about it or as not objective at all, hence excluding them
from legitimate participation in the governance of their inquiry. By
the same token, they can define all non-scientists as less truthful,
less knowledgeable, less realistic, and so on, on the basis of a
relative lack of experience with their brand of scientific inquiry.
This does seem to be a pragmatic approach to coping with the alleged
invasion, particularly with regard to the role that it assigns to
research experience. Perhaps, however, my reading is off the mark?
I will do my best to make the next post more concise. Thanks for
your patience.
With regard to JR's comments on Kleinman, two points of objection I
would make are: 1) the characterization of Kleinman as an "academic
politician" (this phrase comes up in paragraph 7, but is foreshadowed
in paragraph 5) is off the mark; 2) JR's statement that Kleinman
makes the claim that "the validation of results arrived at, the
acceptance of hypotheses formed, and the choice of trails [sic] of
investigation . . . are matters of negotiation that should involve
substantive participation by nonscientists motivated by goals
extraneous to those of the scientific field in question" (paragraph
2, my emphasis) is inaccurate. I would also argue that JR fails to
present accurately Kleinman's stance on what JR identifies as the
"real issue" at stake in this paper.
While it might be fair to characterize Kleinman as an "academic
democrat," since he does envision science as ideally responsive to
the needs of a society that functions via democratic principles and
procedures, there is little evidence in his opinion paper that
Kleinman would seek to make the practice of science any more
political than it already is (I would imagine that JR and I would
have some difference of opinion on the degree to which scientific
inquiry already is political and might be inherently political; this
is itself an important divergence and perhaps it is unproductive to
speak about anything other than actual cases in point; however my
focus here is on the question of Kleinman's interest in
"politicizing" or increasing the political character of science,
whatever it may already be at present). What Kleinman does seem
interested in is making the practice of science less commercially
controlled than it already is, not making it more politicized. A
number of Kleinman's expressed concerns are over the degree to which
industrial processes have influenced the course of scientific
inquiry, in biotechnology and the agricultural sciences, as well as
in the nuclear power industry--all of which he mentions in his paper.
Ironically, he and JR would seem to share similar interests with
respect to ensuring that the practices of science maintain their
internal integrity, as scientists themselves would define it.
Kleinman sees the involvement of nonscientists (those that he
supports anyway) as part of an effort to ensure precisely that.
Unlike JR, he assigns the role of intruder or interloper to big
business, not to other academicians. JR (paragraph 2), in contrast,
views "corporate interests" as relatively innocuous, using the
folkloric phrase "pay the piper" to characterize the relation of such
interests to the scientific inquiry.
I find it very difficult to accept JR's benign characterization of
the relation between science and corporate interests. Speaking as a
social scientist here, the available evidence goes against JR's view.
If the academic sciences have been "invaded" by anybody, they have
been invaded by the interests Kleinman identifies. The relation that
scientists have maintained with such commercial interests has
generally been collaborative if not conspiratorial. The voluntary
involvement of scientists with commercial industries has led in many
cases to a weakening of normatively-driven conduct by scientist
insiders, and an increasing failure to practice science as a
discovery process, guided by truth, knowledge, reality, objectivity.
So, when Kleinman advocates the involvement of "outsiders" in such
processes as the validation of results and the choice of trials of
investigation, he does so in an effort to insure that the norms of
scientific conduct that JR wants scientists to adhere to will in fact
be adhered to by scientists themselves. Kleinman also goes to some
lengths at the end of this paper to give examples of how such
involvement by nonscientists can be successful when the outsiders
accept and follow the norms of scientific conduct themselves and
learn to understand the scientific procedures they are monitoring.
Kleinman does not advocate any change in the norms defining how
scientific discovery processes are ideally controlled. Rather, he
seeks the involvement of nonscientists who do not have
commercially-based conflicts of interest precisely for the purpose of
preserving those norms.
In sum, I don't think that JR is wrong in claiming either that
academic politicians exist or that such characters at times seek to
involve themselves inappropriately in the conduct of science.
However, Kleinman's paper doesn't indicate that he is such an
individual. Perhaps, however, there are others who would like to
defend JR's view on Kleinman. Kleinman's paper does meander in a
somewhat freewheeling way through a number of different foci, and it
is often reacting to the work of others rather than setting out clear
arguments of its own, so it is difficult to make a really solid case
for its representing one coherent perspective or another. But on
the whole, I do think JR is not doing justice to Kleinman and that he
is using Kleinman as a straw man when Kleinman is actually more of an
ally than a foe.
Best to all,
Sally
PARAGRAPHS 1-6 OF SCIENCES AS COMMUNICATIONAL COMMUNITIES
People in the hard sciences have become increasingly concerned in
recent years with challenges to their research autonomy from within
academia itself, arising largely from the social sciences and
humanities. An opinion paper in The Chronicle of Higher Education
(Sept 29, 1995) by a sociologist especially concerned with research
priorities, Daniel Lee Kleinman, indicates that the concern is
justified. Kleinman argues there that it is inappropriate for the
sciences in a democratic society to object to allowing nonscientists
to have a substantial role in making decisions about research methods
employed, about how research is regulated, and about what problems
are given priority.
[2]
All of these can of course be affected in one way and another
by available funding, and the comment would perhaps be
unexceptionable if Kleinman was merely saying that the people who pay
the piper (e.g. taxpayers, corporate interests, whoever) have a right
to specify the song played--which is perhaps true enough insofar as
we conceive science as commissioned work--but he makes it clear that
he is making the much more questionable claim that the validation of
results arrived at, the acceptance of hypotheses formed, and the
choice of trails of investigation--activities internal to substantive
scientific inquiry itself--are matters of negotiation that should
involve substantive participation by nonscientists motivated by goals
extraneous to those of the scientific field in question. Kleinman
characterizes the opposition to this attempted intrusion into the
actual course of inquiry in the various scientific fields by
outsiders as such as an "arrogant elitism" bred by the favored
position in academia the hard sciences have enjoyed during the
greater part of this century.
[3]
My own academic experience suggests that an attitude of
"arrogant elitism" is as likely to be found in one academic field as
in another and is rooted in the essentially medieval hierarchical
structure of the professorial system rather than in the favoritism
which is, indeed, enjoyed by the scientists in academia. But however
that may be, Kleinman's dismissal of the objections to the invasion
of the scientific disciplines as stemming from an elitist attitude is
a rhetorical maneuver that obscures the real issue, which is not
whether scientists are to be allowed to do whatever they want at
other people's expense--a position nobody is going to defend--but
whether scientific inquiry is to continue to be recognized
institutionally as a discovery process, guided ideally by the norms
implicit in such ideas as that of truth, knowledge, reality,
objectivity, and so forth, or is to be controlled instead by the
principles of persuasion and accommodation that are used in
negotiational and political activity.
[4]
I will not review the many considerations that have made it
seem plausible to people such as Kleinman that scientific inquiry
reduces finally to bargaining with one's colleagues about outcomes,
which is the assumption that is usually at the basis of the argument
for broadening participation in the science to include people from
other fields who will enter into the supposed "negotiational" process
of inquiry as representing other "stakeholders" with interests in its
outcomes as well. But if the issue is to be addressed effectively by
those interested in defending the sciences against politicization, it
should be done by getting clear on what such things as truth and
objectivity really do mean as a matter of professional procedure and
practice. Armed with a realistic understanding of that, scientists
should have no special difficulty in pointing out, as the occasion
arises, the absurdity of permitting people not involved in the kind
of inquiry in question to have a substantive role in determining how
it is to be conducted. In the absence of that understanding, though,
it is easy to find oneself lost in the jungle of argumentation that
has grown up in connection with this over the centuries and finally
find oneself entrapped verbally by the rhetoric of skilled debaters.
[5]
By and large, philosophers have not been of much help in this,
but I think Charles Peirce's conception of the nature of scientific
practice and of what differentiates it from other forms of human
activity--a matter upon which he could speak from the vantage point
of an accomplished contributor in an astonishing range of scientific
fields--can be of real help in this connection, not by providing
scientists with knockdown arguments that will counter effectively the
argumentation of the interlopers--such matters are not settled in
that way, in any case--but rather by reminding scientists of what is
essential to them as such and what is not. For if the sciences do
indeed find themselves increasingly politicized in the way Kleinman
is working toward, it will not be because this is forced upon them by
people external to science but because scientists themselves forget
what they are and become politicians in the attempt to defend
themselves against that very occurrence.
[6]
In what follows I will speak to this in the spirit of Peirce
but will do so according to my own understanding, and will not
attempt to explain this in the terms he would use himself. I will try
to convey some idea both of what is actually involved in the
commitment to truth and objectivity, and also some idea of how this
relates to the usual strategies of argumentation used by those
wanting to introduce themselves into the sciences in an unacceptable
way.
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